Hold on to your butts, this one is a doozy. Earlier today, an image with a screenshot of a trainer standing in front of a boutique in Lumiose City, a location in Pokemon X & Y, started floating around. It seemed to show something kind of incredible: Missingno, that classic glitch from Pokemon Red and Blue.
For those not in the know, back in the original Pokemon games there is an infamous glitched Pokemon that players can encounter and catch, provided they do the right things. The glitch looks like a backwards L shape, and despite not being an ‘actual’ Pokemon, trainers could actually use it — it has a type, stats and everything. It’s called ‘Missingno’, which is short for ‘Missing Number’. Using Missingno, however, could result in a corrupted game.
Future Pokemon games have had glitches and even glitched ‘Pokemon,’ but Missingno hasn’t really made a return in any official capacity — I mean, it’s not a real Pokemon and all that. While it might be one of the most famous game glitches ever, it’s still not something you’d expect to see in any capacity, usable Pokemon or not, in Pokemon X & Y — games that released over a decade after Red and Blue.
And yet, here it seems to be. A modern Missingno of sorts has been sighted. We’ve confirmed that if you visit the front of Boutique Couture in Lumiose City, sometimes, a blue backwards L appears inside the shop. It is not always viewable — your best bet, should you want to see it, is to swing the camera left and right until you see an outline, then slowly try to find the angle at which it’s best viewable.
Here’s a bigger take on the leading image of this post:
And from a different angle:
While it looks suspiciously like the glitched Pokemon from the original games, it is not, as far as we can tell, an actual Pokemon — you can’t interact with it in any way. If you get too close to it, your character simply goes into the boutique (and then, if you’re not fashionable enough, you’ll get kicked out of said boutique — grr.) The image does seem to change size depending on where you view it from.
The curious thing about this is that not only does this Missingno-like image still exist (it’s been over a decade since the release of the original games), there is, in fact, a glitch to speak of in the same general area. While not related to the Missingno-like image you encounter in the boutique, currently, if you save in the outer ring of Lumiose City (pictured below in blue), your game may become corrupted and your controls may become unresponsive.
Nintendo plans to release a fix via eShop “as soon as possible” and for now advises simply to not save in the affected areas.
We’ve contacted Nintendo to ask about the Missingno-like image and whether it is at all connected to the glitch some players are experiencing in Lumiose City (probably not) — but for now, it seems either like it’s an uncanny coincidental graphical glitch/artifact, or a really cool easter egg. Who knows what it is! What’s clear is that wherever anything resembling Missingno goes, corrupted terrors await. I retract my desire for a Missingno Mega Evolution.
Comments
29 responses to “Has The Famous Glitch, Missingno, Returned In Pokémon X & Y?”
…dammit, that better not be the case. Otherwise I might have to get this on a technicality.
When I was a wee Riley Jr I remember pronouncing it Missi-ingo >.
XD i used to call it “Missigno”
Missingnooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo
You know what that means? Missingno. is now canon.
Still a better Pokemon then the fairy keychain.
Klefki is actually really powerful. It’ll beat the crap out of you
i think he’s talking about the design. What’s better? A backwards L or a keychain. That’s what I thought. Missingno. All the way
Cue the creepypasta, or possibly the long, convoluted, stupid cheat that doesn’t actually work (Finish the game in under 2 hours without catching a Pokemon on route 99, and you’ll get Pokemon #842, “Charizoid”, a robot / dragon Pokemon that is indestructible.
Metal Greymon?
Missingno did not corrupt your game, only ‘M (the Missingno lookalike you have in your screenshot) did. >:(
It would corrupt your hall of fame pokemon. Also if you duplicated a non consumable item you could technically screw up your inventory.
Ah yeah, you’re right, it would corrupt your hall of fame. And dat bicycle duplication.
But it was ‘M that killed your save.
I still remember how to activate the cheat til this day.
Watch veridian city pokeguy catch pokemon > fly to cinnibar island and use surf on the east coast. Item slot 6 is now 99+
? Wasnt it: deposit gym key use surf and get off infront of the gym door then it will auto turn you away back to the water and then tada (?) Its been so long….
Ever wonder how it works?
Well it’s simple. The game normally has just one place in memory for storing the player’s name. But, for the Old Man battle, the player’s name is temporarily replaced with “Old Man”, which means the name of the player needs to be placed elsewhere in storage. Specifically, they placed it in the data that tells the game what Pokemon can appear when in a Wild encounter.
Normally, when you enter a new area with Wild Pokemon, the game stores the possible Pokemon you can encounter to a spot in memory. After watching the Old Man, your name is in that spot, but it normally doesn’t matter, as it would be over-written as soon as you left town. But just east of Cinnabar is an exception, as you are still counted as being in town, so the data isn’t changed.
The game then loads up the point in memory that the letters of your name refer to. Usually, this will refer to a chunk of dummy or garbage data.
The item in sixth slot thing is due to data overflow.
Oh cool. I did computer science degree so that makes sense to me, if you tried explain that to 12y old me I would of stared blankly at you.
Wonder if there are any other locations that count as inside a town.
I remember catching a Missingno. (Actually, I think it was an ‘M), teaching it Cut and Fly, then feeding it a rare candy and letting it evolve into (of all things) Kangaskhan. From there I taught it Surf and Strength, and then I had my one HM pokemon. Flying Kangaskhan was my favourite.
Looks like a shop counter from side-on to me. *squints*
Missingno 2.0 confirmed.
With Porygon been a thing that exists in Pokemon’s canon and lore, I once really hoped that Gamefreak would some day make it official.
Imagine, if you will, another pokemon plot, maybe one about Team Whatever infiltrating the internet, but instead of the last fight being a dramatic conclusion with Giratina in the crazy dimension physics world, the big villain gets blindsided by a very glitchy looking L-Block, which you must defeat. Or capture.
He still has two sky attacks and his type is still normal/bird, and maybe he can only breed with genderless pokemon, or perhaps randomly selected ones. And he can only learn random TMs instead of normal/flying type moves. By random I mean, at Gamefreak’s choosing.
I dunno, I always thought there was a bit of room for fun there. At least make him an optional boss after a long sidequest or something.
But hey if this is actually a nod, then that is pretty damn cool. Doesn’t reaaaally look like him though.
what if it is? i think i read someone on one of the plaza said she heard a pokemon cry
Mega Missingno. corrupts every save you will ever make. Twice.
There is also that creepy ghost that appears in one of the buildings on a certain floor. (Don’t remember what floor). The whole town is the opposite of the happy feel it gives off 😛
Seems coincidental to me. I mean you could argue its Gollett’s left eye.
Or is Missingno Gollet ‘s left eye!? Mind explosion
Lumiose City seems a little creepy to me.
– This
– The save bug
– The lady in the empty office building
– The creepy lady in the hotel
– The sign in the station
– The terrible camera angles
Seem weird i dont need a glitch in a game if it corrupts my gaming then NO THANKS
Originally, i have Pokemon red, and as so I’ve seen missingno., pretty cool huh? While, it will not corrupt Pokemon (X) but, it will corrupt Pokemon (Y). Pokemon X players, Its totally cool. You can find me in (Passerby) for I am Ariel.
I heard a rumor that if you go into the boutique for a unknown number of times missingno will appear. Note I’m still testing it.